The rail transport in Germany: stagnation despite political demands!

The rail transport in Germany: stagnation despite political demands!

Waiblingen, Deutschland - In Germany, the proportion of rails at freight transport remains at a frighteningly low level. In 2023, the proportion of freight railways fell to almost 20 percent on the entire goods transport after it was still 20.3 percent in the previous year. This stagnating development is not only a sign of a lack of progress, but also arouses concern to the monopoly commission, which reports only minor shift to the rail. The entire transport of goods has shown declining tendencies last year, which is due to the economic decline in demand and increasing costs, such as the ZVW reported.

It is noteworthy that the old federal government pursued the ambitious goal of handling a quarter of the goods transport on the rail by 2030. However, there are no clear political goals in the current insulted CDU-led government. The monopoly commission has criticized this because the proportion of rails remains behind the political expectations. It demands increased control over how Deutsche Bahn (DB) uses its funds from the special fund to use infrastructure. There is also a risk that these funds will strengthen the competitive position of the DB's own transport companies instead of improving the competitive conditions as a whole.

challenges and perspectives

The challenges for rail freight transport are complex. The Study of the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport emphasizes that despite a prognostous growth in goods The rail freight transport remains stagnating - since the 1990s this topic has aged around 20 percent in Germany and the EU. A central point is the necessary relocation of freight traffic from the road to rail to achieve the energy and climate policy requirements of the federal government.

In order to counteract the stagnating trend, the study examines three scenarios to support the relocation to rail: from expanding the infrastructure to technology upgrades and a new multimodal freight traffic system. In order to promote the energy transition, great efforts would have to be made, for example by creating incentives for environmentally friendly and efficient freight cars.

market situation and competition

In practical application, current figures show that the freight railways made up around 19 percent of traffic in 2023. According to Statista , the market share of captrain in 2022 was only 6.1 percent. Especially in the Montan, chemistry and vehicle production sectors, freight railways can only be replaced by trucks due to overloaded roads, which are often more cost -effective and offer temporal flexibility.

Since freight railways are considered the most climate -friendly means of transport and the degree of electrification of the rail network is around 62 percent, there is potential for improvements. Nevertheless, the business for DB Cargo remains challenging. In 2024, declining sales and a strongly negative EBIT margin had to be accepted. The company is faced with the current renovation concept, which includes the reduction of 2,300 jobs.